


And Nights Are Bright Days

by fiorediloto



Category: Band of Brothers (TV 2001)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Canon Era, Christmas Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Meet the Family, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:42:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21876829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiorediloto/pseuds/fiorediloto
Summary: “War’s over, Lew,” Dick said. “We’re alive—”“Speak for yourself.”“We’re alive,” Dick repeated, “and you’re here.”
Relationships: Lewis Nixon/Richard Winters
Comments: 22
Kudos: 86
Collections: DDSherman Holiday Exchange for BoB 2019





	And Nights Are Bright Days

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Arwen88](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arwen88/gifts).



> Dear Arwy, this fic is for you! I hope it's just as fluffy as you like it, or at least somewhere in that region. Happy Christmas!
> 
> A million thanks to the lovely [Zippit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zippit/pseuds/Zippit) for record speed beta-reading <3

_All days are nights to see till I see thee_  
_And nights bright days when dreams do show me thee_

W. Shakespeare, Sonnet 43

The diner on Route 30 was lit up like a Christmas tree, roof wrapped in red and gold blinking lights. Nix, who’d kept his eyes peeled hoping for a place where they could take a break, saw the gas station sign well ahead, and when the lights finally showed up around the curve, he’d already made up his mind. He put the right blinker on.

“Let’s stop for gas,” he proposed, even though the tank was still a good one-third full.

He handed the money to the gas operator through the window, and then he drove the Caddie to the closest spot by the diner’s door. The parking lot was all but empty. Through the open window he could hear the half-frozen layer of snow crunch under the wheels as the car rolled into its slot, engine humming docilely under Nix’s command. Nix turned it off and reached for the door handle.

“The window,” Dick reminded him, a patient and amused ring to his voice. He had his gloved hands stuck deep under his armpits. Nix felt guilty for not noticing before.

“Yeah. Sorry,” he mumbled. He rolled up the window and got out of the car.

The electric lights were a tad too bright, especially after the soothing quasi-darkness of the car. Nix’s pupils shrunk down to the size of grape seeds. He trudged on to the very last booth and sat facing the wall, his back turned to the room.

Dick slid onto the padded seat across the table. His cheeks and nose had already turned pink from the sudden warmth of the room. He sniffed, unfurling his scarf, and slowly plucked his gloves from his fingers. Nix watched sheepishly as Dick flexed them and rubbed the palms together.

“You could’ve told me,” Nix mumbled, reaching inside his breast pocket.

“What?”

“That you were cold.”

“I’m fine. No need to waste gas on it.”

“He says, his nose falling off.”

Dick smiled. “Pennsylvania in winter is no Bastogne, Nix.”

Nix made an impatient gesture with the hand that now held his old, battered hip flask. The liquid inside it sloshed decisively. Nix uncapped it and took a small sip, just enough to wet his tongue.

“Next time just tell me, okay? Better yet, turn on the heat yourself. If I wanted to hang out with a goddamn popsicle, I’d have my pick among Stanhope’s business pa—”

“Nix,” Dick whispered.

Nix leaned back in his seat. The waitress, a young lady with a stained apron who must’ve been new, seeing how she’d won the Christmas evening shift, stopped by their table with her eyes still cast down on her notebook. Her glance fell to Nix’s flask and then quickly moved up to Nix’s face.

She didn’t flinch, nothing as dramatic as that, but Nix felt discomfort rise and emanate off her like a heat wave.

“Uh, we don’t serve any—uh—” she stammered, but Nix waved a hand to mean it was all right.

“Coffee,” he ordered. “For you?”

“Coffee, please.”

“Something to eat?” the waitress asked Dick.

“No, thanks.”

“The pies don’t look half bad,” Nix chipped in.

“I sit at my mom’s table with no appetite, you’ll do the explaining.”

The waitress jotted down the order and walked away with a spring in her step. Dick followed her with his eyes, the ghost of a frown wrinkling his brow.

“About that,” Nix started, tracing his finger around the rim of the flask. He collected a drop clinging to the side—a thick, dark bead of liquid—and brought it to his lips. “I’ve been thinking.”

“About?”

“That,” Nix repeated. “Dinner and all.”

“It doesn’t apply to you, what I said. Nobody expects—”

“No, no, I know. I know. But I gave it some thought and I think, well, I think it’s best if I take up a room somewhere in town. For the night.” 

“Your room’s ready,” Dick replied. “It’s no bother.”

“It is,” Nix insisted.

“It’s not. Besides,” Dick continued, “what’s the point of you coming to dinner and then leaving to go sleep somewh—” He stopped abruptly. Nix’s eyes sought refuge in his flask. 

“Nix, come on,” Dick pleaded softly.

“I’ll drive you to the doorstep, okay? You can take the train back, or I can pick you up in a week. I don’t mind,” Nix offered quickly.

“I don’t need a cab driver,” Dick snarled. “You’re coming, Nix. We talked about this.”

Nix sighed. He traced his thumb along the dent on the bottom of the flask that deformed it and prevented it from standing upright.

Dick reached out across the table and touched his fingers to Nix’s wrist. They were warm against Nix’s cool skin.

“It’s gonna be fine,” Dick promised. “It’s not like they don’t know.”

Nix covered Dick’s fingers with his own, but the waitress’s padded footsteps approached and Dick snatched his hand back, stone-faced. She lay two mugs on the table, filled them up to the brim and threw Nix a furtive glance from under her eyelashes before walking away.

Dick lifted the mug and inhaled the warm vapors contentedly. To Nix his coffee barely smelled like anything at all. He poured into it from his flask, then screwed the cap back on and put the flask away.

“They’ll hate me, you know,” Nix tried after a sip of spiked coffee had restored enough of his determination for him to put up at least a token fight. “Long as you’re ready for that.”

Dick was silent for a moment. “They won’t love you,” he finally conceded.

“No shit,” Nix grumbled.

“Not at first, but—give them some time. To get used to the idea. I know it took me a while,” Dick added, with that lopsided smirk of his.

Nix scoffed, amused against himself. “Kathy used to say that I’m an acquired taste. She thought it funny, I guess.”

“I don’t know,” Dick smiled. “It is kinda funny.”

Nix shook his head and gave up resisting the smile that was trying to pull up the corners of his mouth. 

“Leech humor,” he mumbled, hiding it behind his mug.

Dick insisted he pick up the tab, on the grounds that Nix had refused to split the gas (“It’s my car, Dick.”), not to mention he overpaid Dick’s wages and he knew it (“She took off with ornaments more expensive than you are.”).

As they walked out, Nix heard the staff whisper none too softly behind their backs, something along the lines of why would a decent-looking fella hang around with one of _those_ , and oh, did you see the flask? Drinking in public, the fucking _nerve_.

Still halfway through putting his coat on, Dick turned his head in their direction, but Nix grabbed him by the arm and shepherded him out of the place before he could engage with them.

“I’m sorry,” Dick said in front of the car, arms straight along his sides like a chastised boy. The lapels of his coat hung open, his long scarf draped uselessly around the back of his neck.

“Why? They your friends?”

Nix took a step on the crunchy snow and looped the scarf around Dick’s neck, tucking one end under the shoulder of his coat. He grabbed Dick’s lapels and tugged at them to straighten the coat out before reaching for the front buttons and fastening them one by one.

Dick watched him like he didn’t quite know what to do. On the other side of the glass door the diner staff were still staring, and Nix thought with furious pride, _Let them stare_.

“There ya go,” Nix murmured, patting the front of Dick’s coat. “Let’s go meet Mama.”

*

Once, in a foxhole night, Dick had asked him if he regretted it.

It was a great deal colder than Pennsylvania, a clear-sky night after a rainy afternoon, and by the small hours every drop of water in the goddamn forest had frozen solid.

They lay in their hole in the ground, half lying, half sitting under the tarp that smelled like dirt and gasoline, wrapped in each other’s limbs so tight that by necessity some measure of warmth had ended up trapped between their bodies.

They hadn’t started off like that. In the beginning they’d been sitting very close, but still no less proper than any other pair of freezing paratroopers. Then Dick had shivered and thrust his hands between his legs to warm them up, and Nix’s arm had followed, digging its way between Dick’s elbow and his side. Joined like that, they’d sort of rotated slowly inwards until Nix’s chin had landed snugly onto Dick’s shoulder.

“This okay?” Nix had asked, unsure about the proper etiquette after twenty days in frozen hell.

In lieu of an answer, Dick had grabbed Nix’s bare hand with his gloved one and pulled it into the marginally warmer nest of his belly. 

Blanketed over Dick’s back like that, Nix could just about close his eyes and brace himself. Dick’s scarf smelled like sweat, _his_ smell, and Nix had never been this close to the source before.

Caution be damned, Nix dipped his nose between the edge of Dick’s scarf and the hinge of his jaw. Lodged within an inch of Dick’s carotid, he could feel the other’s pulse as if it were his own: a steady, liquid rumble like the muttering of a distant waterfall, which made his head spin and conjure, vivid as day, all the things he wanted and couldn’t afford.

Nix would never know why the thought came to Dick then. Maybe it was the way the cold tip of Nix’s nose brushed Dick’s throat—reckless, stupid, courting disaster—and made him go stiff with what Nix hoped was minor physical discomfort, not horror.

“Do you—” Dick started, voice croaky with mucus and disuse. He cleared his throat. “Do you ever regret it?”

Nix thought at first that Dick meant the war, his joining up or perhaps his refusal to be carted off to Regiment to wait out the whole meant-to-be-surrounded bullshit. He opened his mouth to say that no, he didn’t, ever.

“I mean Kathy,” Dick added quietly.

Dick had managed to draw himself even closer without giving the impression that he’d moved at all; Nix’s mouth was now a mere speck of dust, plus all the will he could muster, away from touching—kissing, sucking, _biting_ —Dick’s throat.

“Yeah,” Nix answered, breathlessly. Dick lifted his chin to throw Nix a look out of the corner of his eye, a poor choice, seeing as it brought his neck into direct contact with Nix’s chapped lips. Jesus. Did the man have no idea what this was doing to Nix? Did he truly have no self-preservation instinct?

“You do?”

There was something to Dick’s voice now, a minimal catch that had nothing to do with the state of his lungs. Nix closed his eyes and thought of all the things in his life that were cold and dark and dead, and the urge to do something irreparable subsided.

“Yeah,” Nix repeated, muffled by Dick’s scarf. “Sometimes.”

“Why?”

Nix considered. He hadn’t thought about it in a while, and even then, he hadn’t bothered scrutinizing too deeply for fear of what he might find under the ashes.

“It’s not all they make it up to be,” he said, and hoped that Dick wouldn’t press the matter further.

Dick took a breath. Nix felt Dick’s chest inflate under his hands with a strained, gurgling sound—the beginnings of pneumonia, or who knows what. Nix clung tighter onto the wet wool of Dick’s coat.

“Have you ever—to someone else?” Dick asked, very quietly.

So that was what Dick had been driving at all along. Nix thought of his tragically empty flask and suddenly felt as lost as he had when he’d first woken up with the ring on his finger.

“Why,” he opposed, with a levity he didn’t feel, “you considering joining the dark side?”

Dick shifted in Nix’s arms and Nix feared that he would break their embrace, perhaps leave the foxhole altogether in a show of outrage, but Dick simply adjusted into a more comfortable position. 

“I just want to know,” he said calmly.

“You can’t even say it.”

“You know what I mean.”

“So say it,” Nix challenged him, as if that would prove anything.

Dick sighed. “All right. Have you ever turned someone?”

The answer came surprisingly easy, all things considered. All Nix had to do was tear his face from the single best spot on Earth, the place God himself had designed for Nix to rest his weary head through this and every other day of his long, long, long life, and once the hardest part was done, he just opened his mouth and the words flew out in a rush. 

Dick turned his head with a snap. Nix couldn’t tell how good Dick’s night vision was—he’d forgotten what it felt like, not being able to see in the dark—but Dick’s pupils were huge and his eyebrows drawn in an expression of concern bordering on alarm. He realized then that Dick had hoped he would deny.

“But they wanted it,” Dick said—not a question, but hesitating enough a statement that it hurt.

“Of course they wanted it. What kind of a monster do you think I am?”

“I don’t. I _don’t_. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Dick turned his head away. Through the coat on his back and all the other layers Nix felt Dick’s heart thump like crazy, and that made him feel like he too had something fluttering in his chest, something equally tender and fragile and easy to break. He squeezed Dick’s hand through the glove, hard.

“You know I wouldn’t do that to you.”

Dick swallowed, hunching forward.

“Not,” Nix pressed, thrusting his fingers between the knuckles of Dick’s glove, “unless you asked.”

“No,” Dick answered, quickly. _Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump._

Nix rested his forehead between Dick’s shoulder blades, and for the first time since his transformation he felt like crying. It was no surprise that Dick didn’t want to be like him. God knew there were times Nix didn’t want it either, times when the thought of this—this _life_ of his simply rolling on without a release date choked him. But there was a war on now, and out there in the forest, huddling like critters behind their wafer-thin line, it was just a matter of time before they were all dead. Only, some of them would be wrapped in a flag and sent home in a box, while others—

“Is that the only way?” Dick asked, interrupting his thoughts.

“What?” 

“Between a lee—a vampire and someone who’s not. Is that the only way for them to—” He squeezed Nix’s fingers, still intertwined with his through the thin woolen glove. “Be together.”

Shock punched the air out of Nix’s lungs faster than the impact of that stray bullet in Holland.

“There are—other ways,” he breathed. “Some of us, they have companions.” _Pets_ , Kathy called them.

“And they feed off them?”

“I think so,” Nix answered, ignoring the poor choice of words.

“Without—”

“Without turning them.”

Somewhere far away, a German flare whistled as it rocketed high up in the sky. A moment later the shelling resumed on the line, stronger than ever.

Nix thought he could smell blood already.

“Tell me about it.”

*

Muffled through the oak door, a girl’s voice announced excitedly, “They’re here!”. Next the door opened to reveal a scrawny girl of fourteen or fifteen, caramel hair pinned back and woven into a lengthy braid. She had Dick’s grey eyes and his mouth, but no freckles.

“You’re late,” she told Dick, crossing her arms over her chest in a pose of textbook wifely contempt. She must’ve learned that from a book, Nix thought, or a movie. “You said six to Mom.”

“We had to stop for gas,” Dick explained, glancing at his watch, and had the good grace to look at least a little ashamed about the misdirection. “Can we still come in?”

“If you apologize,” Annie conceded, tipping her chin up. The corner of her mouth flicked upward in a familiar smirk.

“I apologize,” Dick proclaimed, pulling her into a one-armed hug. “Lew does too, don’t you Lew?”

“Mm-mm,” Nix hummed affirmatively around his cigarette.

“He doesn’t need to,” Annie said, looping her arms around Dick’s neck and kissing him fully on the cheek. She threw Nix a circumspect look out of the corner of her eye, which made Nix wonder if she’d been warned, if not downright turned against him, at least to be wary of him. “He’s a guest.”

“If you’ll have me,” Nix quipped in his warmest voice, but she didn’t look mollified.

She stuck out her right hand, a little rigidly. Nix felt like teasing her a little, maybe bringing her hand up to his mouth for an old-fashioned kiss, but the girl already looked uncomfortable as it was.

“Ann,” she introduced herself. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Nixon.”

“Please, Lewis will do.”

When they shook hands she looked vaguely perturbed, like something was off, but if she thought that Nix’s hand was colder than normal, at least she was mature enough not to let on.

They followed her inside, Dick first and Nix lagging two steps behind. When Nix stepped foot into the house, cigarette dangling from his lips, Annie jerked her head back like she’d been stung by a bee.

“ _Dick_ ,” she hissed.

“What? Oh. Sorry, Nix, we don’t smoke in the house. Do you mind—?”

“Yeah, no, sure. I’ll—”

“Just throw it outside.”

“That stuff kills you,” Annie proclaimed virtuously when Nix closed the door behind him.

Nix wiped a bit of ash off his coat and looked at her, biting back a half smile with the pointy tip of a fang. “Thank you, sweetie. I think I got it covered.”

She blushed up to her hairline and turned around so fast that her braid whipped her shoulder. 

Nix exchanged an amused look with Dick behind her back, but they both promptly wiped it off their faces when the padded steps of Edith Winters made it round the corner and into the narrow entrance.

“Oh, _there_ you are,” she said to Dick, shooting a chastising glance to her daughter the history of which Nix was unable to decipher. Edith looked at Nix, briefly, before setting eyes on her son. She seemed to aim at reproachful, but sounded entirely too warm when she pointed out, eyes crinkling with a suppressed smile, “You’re late.”

“We are,” Dick admitted. “Sorry, Mom.” He didn’t pull out the gas stop excuse this time. He approached his mom less brazenly than he had his sister, like she was some majestic, dangerous creature to be managed with care, and only when she cracked a fond smile, he bent to kiss her cheek.

“That was my fault, ma’am,” Nix said. “Your son was ready at fourteen-hundred in the parking lot, freezing his—freezing off while he waited for me to come down.”

Edith Winters dignified Nix with a considering, pretty dour look, if not for the smile she’d donned for her son still hanging faintly on her mouth. 

“You drove him all this way,” she replied, dodging Nix’s hidden apology. “That was kind of you, Mr. Nixon.”

“Least I could do,” Nix said. “Thanks for having me.” He briefly considered asking her to call him by his first name, as he had Dick’s sister, but he immediately thought better of it. She didn’t strike him as the kind who’d dispense with formalities so easily.

She simply nodded at that, as if to signal that that was enough pleasantries for the time being. Nix couldn’t help but notice that she kept her hands clasped tight in front of herself.

“Dick, take Mr. Nixon’s coat,” Edith instructed. “Mr. Nixon, please come in. Let’s sit down.” He turned around, shepherding her daughter into the living room ahead of herself while Nix divested of his woolen coat.

At this point in life, winter clothing was mainly a courtesy he extended to his fellow men and a means to blend in in a crowd. But Nix had always liked the weight and feel of thick, warm clothes, and while he hadn’t felt the cold in Belgium in any way that mattered, he had nonetheless _felt_ the cold. It seemed that the part of his brain that had spent twenty-three years guarding his body from the dangers of hypothermia was still very much functioning, although in a fucked-up, hit-and-miss kind of way.

“What about this?” Nix asked Dick, pointing at the duffel bag he’d dropped on the floor.

Dick picked it up and threw it over his shoulder. “I’ll put the case in the fridge and take it up to your room,” he said. “Go sit with Mom and Annie.”

“I can carry my own bag,” Nix protested, uncomfortably.

“No need. You’re a guest.”

“But—”

Dick threw a glance in the direction his family had gone, then brushed Nix’s chin with a thumb. His cheeks were a healthy pink, eyes bright with glee. Nix hadn’t seen him so cheerful since before his father’s illness.

“Believe me, she’s more scared of you than you are of her.”

“And that’s how you end up staked,” Nix mumbled, but Dick laughed and steered him gently to the right door.

“I’ll come save you,” he promised.

The room was big and cosy and dominated by a tall, florid, fully decorated Christmas tree. The fireplace was on, and a dining table set for four in gold and red colors. 

The two women were already sitting on one end of a spacious three-seater sofa. Two empty armchairs stood on each side. Nix started walking towards the right-hand one, the one close to the empty spot on the sofa on Annie’s side, but Edith Winters pointed to the other armchair with an open hand. Nix complied sheepishly.

As soon as he sat down, Nix’s gaze fell straight on the three-legged table placed between the empty armchair and the sofa. Next to a bulky black telephone stood the silver-framed picture of a man in his forties, with a pointy chin and a familiar nose.

“Dick tells me that the nitration business is going well,” Edith said politely, to start off the conversation.

It wasn’t, not really, at least not as far as Nix could appreciate, with his perfunctory interest in the matter. But he didn’t want to contradict whatever reassuring lie Dick had been telling his mother.

“We can’t complain, ma’am.”

“And what do you do at the factory, Mr. Nixon?”

“Oh—a bit of this, a bit of that.” He hesitated in front of Edith’s surprised, then politely skeptical expression. “But you know, Dick took a lot of work off my hands,” he continued, changing angle. “All the, uh, personnel management stuff.”

“He’s good at that,” Edith agreed with careful pride. “Good with people. Always has been.”

Nix nodded firmly. “And it’s easier for them, talking to a warm—I mean, to one of their own.”

His hand reached reflexively into his blazer’s inner pocket, but he stilled it before it could fish out the flask. He’d vaguely promised Dick that he would keep it out of the way, or at least out of sight. He lay the hand down, pinching the padded edge of the armrest between thumb and forefinger.

“In a year, I haven’t had to deal with a foreman once,” he ventured, to fill the silence. “If they get on the warpath on some wage issues or whatnot, I cart them off to Dick’s office. Give it ten minutes, they come out hat in hand, saying, _Thank you, Mr. Winters, good afternoon, Mr. Winters_.” He gave out a hopeful chuckle.

“My late husband,” Edith commented dryly, “was a foreman all his life.”

“Well. I mean—”

“And he hated his manager too,” Dick chipped in. He walked over to the framed picture of Winters senior, picked it up, and looked at it for a moment before putting it down on its lace doily.

“They _love_ you,” Nix snorted, just as Edith replied, “Your father hated no one.”

“No one who didn’t deserve it. The man was insufferable. A minor Herbert Sobel,” Dick clarified, to Nix’s benefit.

“A _warm_ Herbert Sobel?”

Dick dodged the armchair and took the spot next to Ann instead, leaving the empty seat to gape at Nix like a hole in the room.

“Warm as can be. Wouldn’t even shake a vampire’s hand.” He threw a glance at his mother, who looked somewhat displeased by the turn the conversation had taken.

Nix smiled. “You’d think that level of chickenshit couldn’t be achieved without three-four hundred years of nobody on earth giving a dam—”

“ _Language_ ,” Edith snapped.

“Sorry, ma’am.” 

“Sorry, Mom.”

Dick was grinning openly and didn’t look very apologetic. Next to him, Ann’s shoulders shook with suppressed laughter.

Later, Edith grabbed ahold of her daughter claiming that she needed help in the kitchen, and Dick stretched on his feet and offered to give Nix the tour of the house. He had a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it twinkle in his eye, but his voice was quiet, level, all business. The perfect host.

The house was a lot bigger than Nix had expected, a pretty two-story building with room to spare for four people. Seeing how Dick had put aside every penny of his wage all through OCS and Toccoa, all but taking the Army chow out of his mouth to send a little extra money home, you’d have believed that they were, maybe not dirt-poor, but a long way away from well off. He wasn’t sure how Dick’s family had afforded the place in the middle of the Great Depression.

He was pondering the topic while they explored the upstairs floor, but all thoughts of financial crises and square foot pricing escaped him when Dick ushered him through a door frame, announcing, “This is my room,”—and a sharp click told Nix that the door had been pushed closed.

Nix turned around. Dick was smiling so softly, so warmly, that he was immediately drawn in. 

“Look at you. Chirpy, are we,” he murmured, touching his knuckles to Dick’s jaw.

“It’s Christmas,” Dick shrugged.

“Thought you Mennonites were the somber, life-is-suffering type.”

Dick leaned back against the door, and in so doing he lured Nix closer. Nix took a step forward, then another, until his chest was flush with Dick’s, and thrust his fingers through the short hair behind Dick’s ear. Dick sighed pleasantly. The vein on his temple throbbed softly under Nix’s touch.

“War’s over, Lew,” Dick said. “We’re alive—”

“Speak for yourself.”

“We’re alive,” Dick repeated, “and you’re here.” 

He thumbed Nix’s starched collar. Nix had ditched his tie on the way out of his office but had not unbuttoned further down than the shirt collar. Hidden under the pristine white cotton, Dick knew, were the purplish marks left by Kathy’s fangs.

“I’m happy you’re here,” Dick murmured.

“Beats dinner with Stanhope.”

“High praise,” Dick snorted.

Nix chuckled, threading his fingers fully into Dick’s hair until he was cradling the back of Dick’s head in his palm. “I’m happy to be here,” he said, because he was. He pressed his lips on Dick’s mouth, enjoying the way Dick’s body relaxed and molded itself against his. Dick’s thumb was still in his collar; Nix felt the nail scratch the spot that, while it didn’t hurt, it would forever feel a little tender, a reminder of choices made.

Nix’s left hand wrapped around Dick’s hip, pulling him closer. He nosed along the line of Dick’s five o’ clock shadow and dipped under his jaw, smelling in the faint remnants of aftershave and Dick’s own scent. He was just torturing himself and they both knew it, but Dick let him have this moment before gently pushing him away.

“Let’s go see what’s for dinner.”

“Mm. Thought you were.”

“Not here,” Dick said, managing to sound both firm and regretful, and Nix nodded easily, because he hadn’t thought for a second that Dick would let anything ungodly happen under his mother’s roof.

The silver lining was, it still beat dinner with his father by a long mile.

*

If Nix had had any interest left in regular food, his mouth would’ve watered already from the top of the stairs. It was probably a testimony to how little his body reacted to it that he hadn’t noticed before, for undoubtedly whatever Dick’s mother and sister had been concocting had not started filling the whole house with its delicious smell in the scant ten minutes he’d spent unpacking his bag. Regardless, he could smell it now, and it was enough to make him regret being unable to partake.

He missed it sometimes. In his previous life, he’d loved eating out. He’d been an enthusiastic patron of restaurants, all the better if they came with a well-stocked wine cellar. His mother, who was terrified of dying and had famously little interest in fine dining, had told him that it would be a relief, being rid of the need—that he would be _grateful_ to be freed from that slavery. He didn’t feel very grateful now, though he’d certainly appreciated it when supplies had run scarce in Bastogne and he’d felt Dick’s waist grow thinner and thinner under his hands. With Kathy, they would often go to exclusive, vamp-only bars which served quite a different kind of fare, but human blood—no matter how expertly mixed or seasoned—just could not match the range in taste of real food.

It was quite a feast. Nix caught sight of an oversized roasted turkey, potato bread, onion cake, cabbage rolls, more casseroles than could legitimately fit any oven over a reasonable timespan, and had just started turning his eyes onto the desserts when he was unceremoniously thrown back to the dining room, where guests are supposed to sit and wait to be served. His offerings of help were politely but curtly turned down. 

Dinner was, above all things, awkward, though nothing Nix had not expected. He’d been at his share of dinners since he’d turned, and the awkwardness never quite lifted completely, no matter how sympathetic the people at the table were. The food problem set him apart from the rest of them, though he kept himself busy with a rather decent bottle of red that no one else touched but him.

Ann seemed fascinated by his very existence, and it didn't take Nix long to figure out that she'd never seen—let alone met—a vampire before. He'd been wrong to think that she was a shy kid. She barely ate at all, too busy engaging him with questions and drinking in all his answers like they were the secrets of the universe.

On the other hand, he got the feeling that Edith Winters was trying to be as hospitable as she could, despite the fact that ostensibly every fiber of her being rebelled against the notion that a devil’s spouse was sitting at her table, no further than one seat away from her virgin daughter. The way her eyes got dark and her mouth thinned into a straight line when Ann asked him about the factory, or New Jersey, or anything to do with his _condition_...

“Annie, let Mr. Nixon be,” she said tersely. “You’ll give him a headache with all your questions.”

“It’s no problem,” Nix started to say, just as Ann quipped defiantly, “Leeches don’t get headaches.”

“Ann,” Dick said pointedly. “That word is very offensive.”

“But everybody—”

“You’re not everybody. Apologize to Lewis.”

Nix shook his head. “Really, I don’t c—”

Dick kicked his shin under the table, hard enough for Nix to get the hint and shut his mouth. 

“So?” Dick insisted, with the hard stare that Nix had seen him use on young, unruly privates.

Ann looked mortified, cheeks red with shame. Nix knew that she hadn’t meant to insult him, but he understood that he was being used to deliver a lesson, and he’d do better to step aside and let it happen. He’d never been abreast with the intricacies of child rearing, anyway; he’d barely bothered training his dog.

“I’m sorry,” she said sheepishly. “I didn't mean it like that.”

“That's all right,” Nix said. He smiled reassuringly, until Ann let out a tiny smile of her own. “And for the record, we do get headaches.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah, when we—” He stopped himself before he could get to the end of the sentence. Dick looked vaguely alarmed. “Sometimes,” he finished lamely, though what he had meant to say was, _When we don't drink for too long_. But even Nix had enough sense to know that that particular topic was off the table.

The little incident slowed down Ann’s curiosity, but not for long. After dinner they moved back to the sofa, where Ann earned herself a stern look from her mother when she defied some kind of rule and went to sit next to the guest.

It was amusing, all the attention. In New Jersey vampires were quickly turning into old news; in New York they were already seamlessly blending with the upper bands of society, collecting new initiates, starring at cocktails, starting fashion trends. But here, at the outskirts of where things happened, this girl still looked at him like he was some magical creature who could do tricks and grant wishes.

“Where are your fangs?” Ann asked at some point, well after Edith had retired for the night. Right before going, Edith had called Dick aside with an excuse or other, and Nix could just imagine what recommendations had been passed from mother to son. Probably something along the lines of, _Don’t let your leech friend take your sister’s soul_.

“Annie,” Dick warned, preemptively.

“No one calls me Annie anymore,” she retorted, piqued. She turned to Nix, fiddling with the tip of her braid. “Is it a bad question, Lewis?”

“Not really,” Nix answered, suppressing a smirk.

She shot Dick a triumphant look. “It’s just, they were out before. I saw them,” Ann said, looking intently at Nix’s mouth.

“Well, they’re not always out. Most vampires can, uh, retract them.”

“How funny,” Ann murmured, eyes still glued on Nix’s mouth. “How do you _do_ that?”

Nix exchanged a look with Dick, asking a mute question, and Dick rolled his eyes and nodded. _Whatever_ , he seemed to say, though in all fairness he looked as amused as Nix felt.

“Wanna see?” Nix offered.

Ann grinned. “Sure!”

Nix had always thought that as far as parlor tricks went, this one was in the same league as wiggling your ears and rolling your tongue, but Ann looked utterly delighted when Nix’s upper canines descended from their lodgement in line with the other teeth and rested a good quarter of an inch longer.

“That’s so funny. Maggie Smith said that you couldn’t do that.”

“Has Maggie Smith ever met a vampire?” Nix asked, trying to avoid sounding a little condescending, but probably failing at it.

Ann looked a little embarrassed at the question, like she already regretted mentioning.

“Is that Larry Smith’s sister?” Dick asked.

“Mm, yeah,” she mumbled.

Nix looked from one to the other Winters sibling, unable to figure out the part of the story that he was missing. 

“Larry was turned a couple years ago,” Dick explained. “In the Pacific.”

“Ah. Well. That’s some rotten luck,” Nix commented, and a part of him really meant it.

After Ann had been sent upstairs, Dick and Nix lingered in the room for a while longer. As soon as they were alone Dick unplugged the Christmas tree and the room went mostly dark, the only light coming from the dying fireplace. Dick took Ann’s place next to Nix and leaned back, close enough that their shoulders touched.

“She’s a good kid,” Dick said.

“She is,” Nix confirmed.

Dick turned his head without lifting it from the backrest of the sofa. He looked tired, but contented. “It’s going well, isn’t it?” he said.

“Sure is,” Nix confirmed, then dropped his voice, adding amusedly, “Other than your mom thinking I’m going to suck your sister dry the moment she looks the other way.”

“She doesn’t really think that.”

“Or maybe that it’ll rub off on her if we sit too close,” Nix continued, teasing him. “Like scabies.”

Dick sighed. “She’s trying, Nix.”

“I know. It’s fine.” Nix patted Dick’s knee, then since the other man didn’t stop him nor tense up at his touch, he ran his hand over the front of Dick’s thigh, prompting a little pleased sound in response. “Frankly, out here anything more civil than a stake through the heart I’m inclined to call a success.”

Dick snorted softly. “Have you ever been—” He waved his hand, grasping for the right word.

“What? Attacked?”

“Mm-mm.”

“Once. Bunch of wasted hicks. Unlucky for them, they had their research wrong on holy water.”

“What did you do?”

“Broke a few bones and sent them packing.”

“You didn’t call the police?”

“Ha. No.”

“Why not?”

“They don’t care over there. It’s fine,” Nix added quickly, sensing the coming protest, “it was ages ago.”

Nix felt a sudden rush of anger roar in Dick’s bloodstream, but he kept stroking the other’s thigh through the trousers until the roaring subsided into a peaceful bubbling. He kept at it for a while, because it relaxed him too. 

“God, I need a drink,” he confessed in the half-dark.

“You do?”

Nix nodded.

“How long?”

“I don’t know. Couple hours? I didn’t want to do it in front of them.”

Dick clucked his tongue, but didn’t protest. “Well, what’re you waiting for?”

Nix turned his head in the same lazy fashion Dick had, with his nape comfortably lodged against the backrest. It would take but a minimal push to kiss him, but his hand on Dick’s leg was already pretty hazardous, and he didn’t feel like moving anyway.

“This is nice,” he said simply.

Dick smiled, eyes reflecting nicely the fire blaze, however little of it was left. He brushed Nix’s hand on his knee, then rested his palm on the sofa between their legs.

“It sure is.”

*

Nix didn’t need to sleep. 

Strictly speaking, he didn’t _need_ to do anything to ensure his body’s continued existence. With a few exceptions, half the things he did, he did because they gave him pleasure, and the other half because he’d done them all his life and he was loathe to stop. Drinking, he did because he’d go half mad with thirst if he didn’t. Sleeping, because his future spanned so unreasonably long that he could not conceive not trying to cheat his way out of some of it.

For a while, when he was freshly turned, he’d enjoyed the endless, tireless nights (and days, once he’d got used to the sun-blocking pills)—the invincibility of not having to stop till he said so. During the war he’d used it liberally, giving himself night patrols and solo recon missions which—immortality notwithstanding—would be infinitely safer under the cover of night.

Maybe he was starting to pay the price for it already, because now, when he stayed up for too long, he got thoughts. To top it off, Dick didn’t get the luxury of choosing, and Nix liked the feeling of a warm body draped over his. So most nights he chose to sleep, though he could not choose to dream. That part, at least, was gone for good.

His senses were keen and his sleep was light—so light, in fact, that he heard Dick’s steps when they were still in the corridor, and by the time Dick had opened his unlocked door and slipped into the room, Nix was up on one elbow and fully awake.

“What’s wrong?” Nix asked, skin prickling with a vague sense of alarm.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Dick whispered back. He bent his knee on the mattress and leaned over Nix’s recumbent body. The bed creaked a little, but not too loudly.

“Oh,” Nix breathed, hands rising to rest on Dick’s hips. He was wearing pajamas. Of course he was. “Thought for a moment the house was on fire or something.”

“No,” Dick answered, and didn’t add anything.

Dick’s heart was drumming fast in his ribcage. Nix could feel it on his fingertips, but he couldn’t tell if it was due to childish excitement or something else. He suspected the latter.

“You knew I’d feel lonely, didn’t you?” Nix murmured, stroking Dick’s sides. “How considerate.”

“I thought you might,” Dick conceded, sounding relieved. “May I?”

“Come in.” Nix folded the bedsheets open and pressed his back as close to the wall as he could. The bed was a little small for two, but they’d squeezed themselves into smaller sleeping arrangements. Nix draped the bedsheets over Dick’s shoulder and ran his arm around Dick’s waist, pulling him close to his chest. Dick’s feet were icy cold, and there was no warmth to spare inside the bedsheets, since Nix’s body barely generated any.

“Sorry,” he said. “It’ll warm up in a mo.”

“It’s all right,” Dick sighed.

Nix ran his hand up and down Dick’s thigh, gently but with purpose, until the friction finally did its trick and Dick’s body started to release some tension. He rested his nose in Dick’s hair, inhaled softly, and was reminded of that night in the foxhole, two years past.

At that stage he’d pined after Dick Winters for so long that he would take any scrap of affection the man was willing to throw his way, no matter how small, and dignity be damned. But then.

 _Tell me about it_ , he’d said, the foolish, beautiful man.

“What is it?” Nix asked, realizing that Dick’s pulse had suddenly picked up.

“Nothing,” Dick answered, a little too quickly. Then, “How’s that thirst?”

“I’m fine. I brought enough to last me the week.”

Dick didn’t reply to that. His fingers trailed down along Nix’s arm and closed around Nix’s hand. He held it like that for a second, as if considering a thought.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Dick confessed.

“Too excited about the presents?” Nix smiled.

“Not about that,” Dick murmured. The fabric of his pajamas rustled softly as he shifted his position, one thigh sliding over the other as if in search of a more comfortable angle.

Nix turned his hand in Dick’s grip and pulled it free, then dragged it carefully down the slope of Dick’s inner thigh.

“Well, hello there,” Nix purred happily, wrapping his hand around Dick’s half-hard cock. 

“It’s a bad idea,” Dick said immediately.

“And yet, here you are,” Nix replied. Dick bit off a sigh as Nix ran his hand up and down the length of his erection, smooth fabric crumpled in Nix’s fist. Nix brushed his lips over the shell of Dick’s ear, collecting a minute shiver from Dick in reward.

“Want me to stop?” Nix whispered, stroking the head with his thumb till he could feel the slightest hint of wetness seep through the fabric.

Dick swallowed. “No.”

Nix sneaked his fingers under the rubber band of Dick’s pants and dipped them all the way inside Dick’s skivvies. Dick’s hair was matted down and slightly damp with perspiration. Nix gripped at the base of Dick’s cock and pulled in a long, firm stroke, eliciting a throaty sound from the other’s lips.

“Shh, come on,” Nix shushed him, biting gently at Dick’s earlobe. “Be good now. We don’t wanna wake up the kid.”

Dick shut his mouth and exhaled silently. Really, Annie’s room was two doors down, the master bedroom was even further down the corridor, and the walls were thick enough that Nix wasn’t especially worried about them being found out. But it wouldn’t do to be careless, not here of all places. The poor woman would have a stroke, for starters.

He pushed his hand deeper into Dick’s pants to touch his balls, rolling them gently on his fingers.

“Like this?” he teased, though he knew exactly how Dick liked it.

Dick hummed a wordless assent, adjusting slightly. The movement pushed a solid, round object into contact with the inside of Nix’s elbow. Nix stilled, then slowly pulled his hand out of Dick’s pants and palmed the small metal container through the pocket of Dick’s shirt.

“This?” Nix whispered, amazed, fishing out the tin of Vaseline.

“It’s been a while,” Dick said, as if that explained all. “We don’t have to. I just—”

“You just couldn’t resist, could you?” Nix asked, amusedly.

Dick hesitated, voice taking on a biting edge. “I’m not ashamed.”

“Who said anything about shame? Here. Open it,” Nix urged, handing over the tin.

In the quiet, the gentle scraping of the metal lid being unscrewed felt as loud as a chainsaw.

“How do you want me?” Dick asked.

“You tell me.”

“Like this, then.”

“All right,” Nix said, pushing his fingers with a generous scoop of cream back under the sheets.

“Mind the—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Nix mumbled. This time, instead of going round Dick’s hip he lifted the edge of Dick’s pants and dipped his hand inside, tracing the buttcrack all the way down with a clean finger. He spread his hand over Dick’s ass, depositing the cream on his opening, which twitched slightly at the touch.

“I like it too, you know,” Nix said, kissing behind Dick’s ear. He rubbed his middle finger over the little scoop of cream, spreading it from tip to knuckle, and pushed it in gently. “You never ask.”

“It feels—selfish.”

“It’s not. I enjoy it,” Nix insisted, moving his mouth to latch onto the spot where Dick’s pulse beat the strongest. He inhaled, just as his knuckle brushed against a good spot inside and Dick drew in a sharp breath through his clenched teeth. Dick’s blood sang raucously in his veins.

“Yes,” Dick breathed.

“Touch yourself,” Nix urged, slipping a second slicked finger in. “Like this. You like it like this.”

“Yes,” Dick repeated. “Lew—Please, just—”

“I’ve got you,” Nix promised, working him in long, deep thrusts and brushing his knuckles against the same spot until Dick’s whole body started to tremble minutely around his fingers. He breathed in Dick’s scent and kissed his neck, sucking at the flesh but not breaking skin. “I’m fucking you, okay? I’m fucking you, and I love it. I love you. I love you.”

Dick’s orgasm resonated in his blood and straight through Nix’s body, making him shake almost as hard as it did Dick. Nix held him through it until Dick stopped trembling and his breath started to slow down, then carefully pulled out his fingers and reached over Dick’s shoulder for the handkerchief folded on his nightstand. He wiped his fingers and between Dick’s legs, and took Dick’s own hanky from his slack grip. He folded them both and threw them back onto the nightstand.

Dick’s shoulder felt heavy where it pinned down Nix’s arm, but he didn’t push him away. Dick looked sated, unguarded, ready to doze off at any moment. It would take Nix but a second to pin Dick’s head to the pillow, bare his fangs, and—

“Lew,” Dick murmured drowsily.

“Yes?”

“Are you thirsty?”

Nix swallowed hard, feeling found out.

“It’s fine. Don’t worry.”

Dick pushed his sleeve up almost all the way to his shoulder and mutely offered his arm, glancing at Nix out of the corner of his eye.

“Be careful,” he warned. “With the sheets.”

“But what if—”

“What?”

What if they find out, Nix wanted to ask. What if they see the marks. What if a drop spills, what if they look at you and just _know_ , what if suddenly there’s no place left to hide?

He swallowed. He _was_ thirsty.

“All right. But just a little,” he bargained. “Can you turn around? Don’t wanna make a mess of—Better use the other one. Thanks.”

Nix took Dick’s other arm and thumbed along the relief of the vein. When he was sure that he had the best spot, the one with the easiest, fastest access, he slid lower on the mattress and curled his body around Dick’s, resting his head on Dick’s chest.

Dick threaded his free hand through Nix’s hair, like he had the first time and every time after that.

Nix put his lips to Dick’s skin and kissed it. It would hurt, although Nix knew how to make it quick and keep the cut as small as possible, and he regretted the pain every single time.

Then he carefully, almost reverently touched the sharp tip of a fang to the skin.

*

Once, in Austria, Dick had asked Nix to drink from him.

He looked just like he did now, spooned comfortably in Nix’s arms, soft and lax and way too fragile, way too easy to betray. They had warm showers over there, and they had had a quick one just before retiring for the night, so that now Dick’s scent was all the way into Nix’s nose and into his brain, too enticing to ignore. Still, he’d been good at keeping it at bay; he’d learned a long time ago how to push the thought into the farthest corner of his mind so that it wouldn’t be the only thing he could think of.

Then Dick bent his arm back and hooked it carelessly around the back of Nix’s head, pulling him into the crook of his neck, and just like that, Nix felt at the end of his rope.

“Dick—Come on, don’t,” Nix pleaded, resisting.

“You think about it?”

“I won’t,” Nix swore. “I’d never. I told you.”

“But you _want_ to?”

“Dick—”

“You _want to_?”

“Goddamnit, Dick,” Nix snapped, jerking his head back. “What’s gotten into you?”

Dick turned in Nix’s arms, the post-orgasmic daze that had made him sound sleepy and defenseless completely lifted. He looked like his daylight self now, the Army major, calm and composed and entirely in control.

“It won’t work like this,” he said, and God but he sounded serious. “If I always get what I need and you don’t.”

“I don’t care,” Nix replied. “I don’t _really_ need—”

“Nix.”

“It’s not the same,” Nix opposed.

“How’s it not the same?”

“I have other—means. I’m not going to starve. It’s fine.”

“But what if I want you to have it?”

“I’m not sending your soul to hell for a snack every now and then,” Nix spat.

Dick looked pained, then, and Nix thought that maybe he shouldn’t have reminded him of what every single Christian Church—and a good deal of the others—had to say on what _consorting with vampires_ did to the soul of God-fearing folks. Dick knew the tune well enough already.

“You’re the best man I know,” Dick said slowly. “And I love you.” He took Nix’s hand and guided it to the bend of his elbow, pressing Nix’s fingertips on the naked blue vein pulsating there. Nix’s fingers stroked it reflexively, mouth dry with anticipation despite his best intentions.

“I know. You don’t need to prove it.”

“That’s not it,” Dick replied, voice steady. “I can’t if it’s not mutual,” he pressed. “It must be mutual.”

And that was what did it for Nix: the thought that somehow, despite the fact that he loved the man with all his being and would sooner cut his own arm off than hurt him, this thing they had—this _approximation_ of something—ultimately it might not be enough for Dick, and when Dick realized it, he would look elsewhere for whatever he felt was missing.

Nix licked his lips, fingertips still on Dick’s pulse like a family doctor.

“I—Goddamnit,” Nix cursed under his breath, “are you sure?”

Dick’s heartbeat picked up, but his voice sounded crisp and confident as it always had on the line, when he’d effortlessly maneuvered the lives of the men under his command.

“I am. I’ve been for a while.” His free hand rose to Nix’s cheek, then to the back of his neck, pulling him in. “Come here, now.”

*

Afterwards, they lay in bed for some time. Dick asked Nix not to let him fall asleep, and for a while they kept reminding each other at intervals that Dick needed to go back, though neither made a move in any direction.

Nix wasn’t tired—he never was—but his thirst was quenched and the night had a certain drowsy quality to it. And it was nice, lying together like that, suspended in time.

“All right,” Dick said for the fifth or sixth time. “I’m going.”

“Uh-huh,” Nix hummed skeptically.

“I need to sleep,” Dick insisted.

“Sleep here,” Nix teased him. “Climb out of the window when the sun goes up. Perfect crime.”

“She’ll be up and about hours before—Hey, did you bring your pills?” Dick suddenly asked.

Nix rolled his eyes. “Yes, Mom.”

That seemed to finally make up Dick's mind. He opened the bedsheets, got on his feet and tucked them into the slippers, then folded the covers over the spot he’d left. Nix reached out under the sheets, touching the warm print of Dick’s body. In a moment he would roll over, dig his face in the pillow that smelled like shampoo and Dick’s hair, and he would try to preserve whatever little warmth he could, for as long as he could. In a moment, though. Once Dick was gone.

“Okay, then,” Dick said. “You catch some sleep.”

“Sure,” Nix mumbled under the sheets. “I need my beauty sleep.”

Dick walked to the door. It was maybe one or two in the morning. It would take a catastrophic strike of bad luck for either of the women to catch him on his way back, and yet there was always a chance, however small. That Dick, the most cautious, prudent man on Earth would take the risk just to spend an hour in Nix’s bed made him feel—well. Like there was a point, after all, to this excuse of a life.

“Dick?”

“Mm?”

“Do you ever regret it?”

Dick went still, hand already on the doorknob. “What?”

“You know. This. All the—complications.”

“I don’t,” Dick answered easily, casting him an earnest look. “Do you?”

Nix shook his head. “I’m dead, not a fool.”

“You’re not—All right,” Dick gave up, repressing a smile. “I’ll see you at breakfast.”

“I’ll be there at some point.”

“At seven, Nix.”

Nix groaned under the sheets and mumbled something about having earned his honorable Army discharge.

“If you don’t see me, it means I decided to go through my stash and got drunk rotten on blood.”

“Your stash is in the fridge,” Dick reminded him, “and you can’t get drunk.”

“Don’t I fucking know it,” Nix muttered.

He closed his eyes, expecting to hear the door and Dick’s padded steps, but nothing came. He opened them. Dick was still standing there, looking back at him with a soft, mildly exasperated smile.

He was, without a doubt, the best thing that had ever happened or would ever happen to Nix in all his pathetic, past or future life, eternity included.

“ _Go_ , you ridiculous man,” Nix grumbled. “I’ll be there, okay? Off you go.”

Dick nodded, looking smug. He carefully opened the door, slid out into the corridor, and then he was gone.


End file.
